Eye On Illinois: With general election underway, a look at our diluted (at best) votes

Six weeks from today the voting will be officially over. In Illinois, that process begins tomorrow, as Sept. 26 is the first day for mail-in ballots to be sent as well as the beginning of in-person early voting.

Tomorrow also, according to elections.il.gov, is the last day for poll watcher organizations to register with election authorities and the deadline for those authorities (mostly county clerks) to establish and certify which vote centers will be open to everyone on Election Day, regardless of precinct.

Pennsylvania’s early voting started Sept. 16. Minnesota, South Dakota and Virginia opened Friday. Mississippi started Monday. Missouri began Sept. 17 for those with an approved reason, otherwise, early voters must wait until Oct. 22. Alabama and New Hampshire don’t have any early voting. North Dakota does, but only in seven of 53 counties. That state also lets counties choose whether to accept mailed ballots and set other rules.

But at least everyone’s vote is counted equally. Sort of.

Illinois, like 48 other states, awards all its Electoral College votes to whichever candidate gets the most votes in that state. Maine and Nebraska – for now – allow for the possibility of split votes. In 2020, each state had one district go a different route from its others. That sets those nine districts apart from the other 529 electoral votes.

Then there’s the matter of population. The number of electoral votes is proportional to a state’s Congressional delegation. But the formula for allocating House seats is stuck. According to FiveThirtyEight.com, the average number of people in a district has tripled: from 210,000 in 1910 to 760,000 in 2020. Because federal law caps the House at 435, the guarantee of one House district means certain individual votes have more electoral powers than others.

Take the current U.S. Census estimate of 337 million, divide by 538 and get 626,394. Take Illinois’ 2020 total of 12,812,508 and divide it by our 19 electoral votes to get 674,342. The numbers are worse for states with more people. But in Wyoming, with 576,851 residents, each of the three electoral votes is divided across just 192,284 people.

In Illinois, 40% of 2020 votes went to the Republican candidate but 20 electoral votes went to the Democrat. Gerrymandering would’ve prevented a 12-8 split – the House delegation went 13-5 to Democrats – but something in the system is broken when 2.44 million votes can’t move a needle.

This column was supposed to be about ranked-choice voting, but we’re still awaiting a final report from a task force that met from January through early April. It’s just one of many reform ideas that might change the way we form a representative government, all of which are worth at least consideration.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. Follow him on X @sth749. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.